| Hooked on finding paradise
I used to know where it was.
Know the name, have the business card:
Paradise Farms, Jamaica.
My uncle owned it— a250 year old cola nut plantation.
While landscaping,
my aunt fell over a misplaced stone.
"Oddly round," she thought.
Dislodged, saw a dank tunnel under the pool area.
Sent a boy down - Said:
"Gwan I'm here to watch you."
He found shackles, a meerschaum pipe,
blown brown bottles.
Auntie remembered a tree,
a piece of chain deeply embedded,
the tree grew around it.
Downhill, a white blanket of Easter Lilies.
Suspicious, she followed the chain --
into the perfumed field.
Some
things don't sit well. Like, Paradise
and lilies.
This is where the slaves were hooked up.
Above a field of lilies. Masters died, slaves mourned,
attached to the tree.
My aunt wondered why so many wild lilies grew.
So she followed the chain, it led into the ground.
Seems there'd be some record.
I found my grandfather's name.
It read he was famous. A 'football' player --
moved away to Haiti to announce radio. I found an article how he beat President Manley
in the long jump in 1912.
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